


Challenged

by AreYouSittingComfortably



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Developing Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 18:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreYouSittingComfortably/pseuds/AreYouSittingComfortably
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they meet, she knows he is a liar. She takes a knife to his throat, ties him to a tree, and threatens to leave him to the ogres. Some things don't change, he thinks, as she knees him in the groin and slams the door in his face. (A short reflection on the course of Captain Swan as the troubled ship navigates its turbulent waters).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Challenged

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while, but I couldn't get the season three mid-season finale out of my head, so I've charted the course of Captain Swan's relationship from their stormy beginnings, to the goodbye they couldn't say. And possiby beyond (we'll have to wait and see)!

The first time they meet, she knows he is a liar. She takes a knife to his throat, ties him to a tree, and threatens to leave him to the ogres. Things like this seem to happen to him a lot.

He’d hate her, if he wasn’t enjoying himself.

They climb a beanstalk, overcome a giant, find a magic compass, and give away more about themselves than either of them means to. 

But as soon as she starts to enjoy herself she knows she can’t trust him, so she chains him up and leaves him behind. He hates her more for not trusting him than he does for her leaving him. He meant it when he’d sworn allegiance to her.

The witch is waiting for him at the bottom of the beanstalk. Now he really isn’t enjoying himself at all. He steals a princess’s heart and buys his life with it. 

*****

The second time they meet, he tells her he is done with her, tells himself he doesn’t care about leaving her behind.

She hates him even more for his words than she does for him leaving her. She’s used to people leaving her, expects it.

*****

They fight at Lake Nostos, clashing with swords and words, it doesn't occur to either of them to take on someone else. He hasn’t felt so alive in 300 hundred years. He has her right where he wants her, on her back. He can’t help but make reference to what he’d rather be doing, and in his moment of distraction, she fights back. She overcomes him, and then the witch, and escapes though the portal, back to her son. And when Henry asks what happened in The Enchanted Forest, she talks about the ogres. 

He knows that he’s been bested, but he doesn’t care as much he should. He believes in a fair fight. She has the compass, but he has the bean. And the witch. And his ship. And the giant. And a whole new challenge he's looking forward to in Storybrooke. 

*****

The fourth time they meet, he is broken but triumphant, about to finally have his revenge on the crocodile. She stands over him, looking down in disbelief. 

“Hey Beautiful!” he laughs through the pain. 

She hauls him off to hospital, and has him chained to the bed, where he can do no harm, but makes sure they hide him, so no more harm can come to him either. 

“You’re really into this, aren’t you?” he can’t stop himself from asking (hopefully), and when she tells him “If I had to pick dead guy of the year, I’d pick you” he takes comfort in the thought that she’d pick him for something. It’s a start.

She reminds herself that she should hate him for bringing the witch to Storybrooke, and hurting Belle, but instead she feels sorry for him. Somewhere deep down, she knows she used to be him. She knows he will never get the satisfaction he seeks. He’s far more likely to get himself killed, but he doesn’t seem to care. She’s been there. There was a long time when she stopped caring about what happened to herself.

*****

The fifth time they meet, he barely even sees her, knocking her out as he tries (and fails again) to skin his crocodile. This time she knocks him out and locks him in a broom closet. No, she tells Neal, she has no problem leaving him behind, again.

*****

It seems like a long time before they see each other again, but somehow she knew he’d turn up eventually. The sixth time they meet, it’s her father who hits him, which even he (reluctantly) agrees is fair. They’re not sure what side he’s on, and neither is he. He helps them get a bean, then lies to them, and keeps it for himself. This time it costs him more than a hand, the pain of finally confronting his mistakes. He tries to leave them behind, but he can’t. Can’t shake the memories of another mother and son. Can’t betray the memory of a boy he tried to care for. Can’t destroy the boy's family. So he comes back, for them, for her. 

*****

The seventh time they meet, he offers her hope, offers her the possibility of finding her son, and finds his heart is not as dried up, dead, and useless as he long suspected. 

She doesn’t know what to make of his change of heart, but she accepts it. She’ll accept anything that will help her find her son. She rolls her eyes at his attempts at flirtation, feigns irritation, but it distracts her from the despair that threatens to overwhelm her. It's an amusement that she badly needs. A constant in a time of little comfort. So, when he dares to ask her to thank him for saving her father’s life, she surprises them both, and does. 

He is lost from the moment she kisses him. She’s right, of course, he can’t handle it. 

Neither can she. But she tells him it’s a one-time thing, and walks away. 

*****

I kissed him, she tells her mother. It was just a kiss, I was feeling good, it didn’t mean anything. But struggles to remember the last time anything, anyone, made her feel good.

Her mother tells her that Neal will forgive her. 

She doesn’t tell her mother that she may never be able to forgive Neal. 

*****

He confesses that he kissed her, that for him, it wasn’t just a kiss. Telling her the truth is the only way to help her find her way back to her once-loved (the son of his once-loved, the friend he betrayed against his better instincts), the only way to put things right. But if truth be told (and it must) he wants her to know that he was lost before he met her, that his once dead heart is full of possibility again.

He hears her tell her once-loved that she loves him, that she will probably always love him, but a little part of her wishes that he was really dead. He feels hope and hopeless all at the same time. Centuries of nothing but anger and emptiness, and now so many feelings they threaten to drown him. 

*****

She feels angry and guilty, like she’s hurting everyone. They all want something from her when she has nothing to give. Nothing for the man she loved, who promised her the life she wanted, before leaving her locked up, feeling dried up, dead and useless. And nothing for the man who threw those very words at her, and yet somehow comforts and reassures her.

“Neither one of us is going to back down” he tells her. 

“It’s not a contest” she whispers. 

But for them, it is. 

They both let her down when she needs them most, caught up in a fight that began long before they met her. 

She puts up her walls again, closes herself off. “I choose Henry” she tells them both, “He’s the only love I have room for in my life.” and means it.

*****

It takes the Evil Queen (of all people!) telling her how lucky she is, for her to realise that for the first time in her life, there are people (plural) who love her, whether or not she loves them back. This is more than she ever expected.

*****

They return from their quest, triumphant, thinking the demon is vanquished. 

*****

Being around Baelfire unsettles him, reminds him of his mistakes. So he tells her once-loved that he’s going to back off, give them a chance, for the sake of the boy (but makes it clear that backing off is not giving up). 

He gets drunk and flirts with the fairy, out of habit, but she’s known him too long, can see straight through him, knows it's the rum talking. He takes some satisfaction from the look on Swan’s face when she sees them. Maybe he’s not fighting fair, but he has hope. 

*****

It turns out the demon isn’t vanquished.

This time they both come through when she needs them, but there is no time to celebrate. The demon has one final trick up his sleeve. 

She’s only just found all these people who love her, but now she has to say goodbye to them again. She fights it, the Lost Girl inside wanting to scream at the unfairness of it, but there's no choice, it's the only way to help Regina save them all.

She holds Neal in her arms and feels nothing but sorrow. Not for herself having to say goodbye to him again, but for the Lost Boy who finally stopped running from his father, only to finally lose him, forever. “This isn’t over.” he says, but they both know what is, and what isn’t. 

She tries to walk away, avoiding the other goodbye she unconsciously can’t face saying, but he won’t let her.

He stops her, with a joke, because what else is there? That’s what this is, one final, cruel joke.

And that’s when her walls finally crumble. 

Looking up at him, she sees all the hope and possibility she hasn’t allowed herself to feel, and her mask slips away. There she is, again, the Lost Girl.

And he sees her. She knows he sees her more clearly than anyone, and she doesn’t mind. She can finally admit it’s good to be found.

They don’t touch because they know neither of them could handle it.

He gives her the only thing he can - the truth, plain and simple. “Not a day will go by, I won’t think of you.” he promises. 

“Good.” she tells him all he needs to hear, the only thing that matters.

And then, once again, she leaves him behind. 

But this time it isn’t by choice, and he knows it.

*****

As she drives away, the curse wipes away all memory of him, of everyone but the father of her child. The mother who has to give up the daughter she loves, again. The Queen, redeemed, who gives up the one thing she truly loves, their son. Who gives her one final, unexpected gift - she never gave him up. The last twelve years of her life have not been empty.

As she drives away from everyone that loves her, her heart is filled with love for her son, and his for her. 

As she drives away from everyone that loves her, the Lost Girl is left behind as well. 

*****

A long year passes before he finally finds her. The wicked witch and her flying monkeys, Maleficent, and that bastard Blackbeard, a journey across realms are but a few of the obstacles that stand in his way. 

“Swan!” he grins with joy and relief, “at last!”

The look on this stranger’s face alarms her. She doesn’t know who he is. Is this a joke? A kiss-a-gram? She looks around for the candid camera, but finds none. And the wall (and the knee) goes up, and she slams the door in his face. Some things don't change, he thinks. Their relationship has always been turbulent.

He crumples to the ground, a pain in his groin, and more pain in his heart.

How is he to know that she is no longer a Lost Girl needing someone to find her? That for the first time in her life, she is happy? That she hasn’t been cursed, she’s been blessed? How could he know that it can't be true love’s kiss when she isn’t the same woman he fell in love with?

Fortunately, he loves a challenge.


End file.
